Alternatives to Ansel
An open-source RAW photo editor forked from darktable, aimed at precise, manual image development. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Ansel
An open-source RAW photo editor forked from darktable, aimed at precise, manual image development.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Ansel.
darktable
A non-destructive raw developer and photo workflow application: a virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers.
darktable is the larger upstream project Ansel was forked from, adds a macOS build and a database library, and keeps its own module-heavy interface.
RawTherapee
A raw processor built around demosaicing and colour accuracy, with a 32-bit floating point engine and unusually deep controls.
RawTherapee is a free, open-source raw processor with a 32-bit floating point engine and deep demosaicing controls, but has no library or catalogue management.
ART
Raw photo processor derived from RawTherapee with a simpler interface.
ART is derived from RawTherapee with fewer controls for quicker editing, runs on Windows, macOS and Linux under GPL-3.0, and has no cataloguing features.
RapidRAW
Develop camera RAW images in a GPU-accelerated editor.
RapidRAW is an open-source GPU-accelerated RAW editor under AGPL-3.0 that also runs on macOS and Android, but needs compatible graphics hardware.
vkdt
A GPU-accelerated workflow toolbox for processing raw photos and raw video, built on Vulkan.
vkdt processes raw photos and raw video on the GPU with a node graph built on Vulkan, runs on Linux only and has terse documentation.
Filmulator
An open-source raw photo editor that simulates film development to keep editing simple.
Filmulator trades detailed manual control for a deliberately small set of controls and film development simulation, with a much smaller feature set.
Adobe Lightroom
Adobe's photo organizer and RAW editor with a library synced across desktop, web and mobile.
Adobe Lightroom is a paid, closed-source subscription RAW editor and organizer with a library synced across desktop, web and mobile, and no Linux version.
Capture One
Professional RAW photo editor and tethering tool used by studio photographers.
Capture One is paid, closed-source software for Windows and macOS with precise RAW color handling and tethered shooting, but no Linux version.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
digiKam
A photo manager built for libraries of a hundred thousand images, with face recognition, batch processing and heavy metadata support.
DNGLab
Convert supported camera RAW files to DNG from the terminal.
RawDigger
A raw image analyser that shows the unprocessed sensor data and true raw histogram.
Hugin
An open-source panorama stitcher that assembles overlapping photographs into a single panoramic image.
ExifTool
Reads, writes and edits metadata in almost every image, audio and video format there is, and is the reference tool for the job.
